Corruption and betrayal in David Mamet’s Glen Garry Glen Ross

Abstract

This study provides a comprehensive analysis of David Mamet’s Glen Garry Glen Ross based on

Althusser’s theory of ideology; his concepts of ISA, RSA, and interpellation. This play concerns

the corruption and betrayal existing between the individuals and the horrors of capitalism during

the postmodern period. Capitalism is a system of exploitation which depends on the exploitation

of certain classes of individuals by others. Because of capitalism, characters live in a society based

on a capitalist economy, in which goods are produced in order to be sold at a profit. Every

individual only thinks of his own success; the competition within the capitalistic system

encourages the ruling class to breed more success despite the other individuals’ failure. The

dominant classes have their own ideology to exploit the dominated class. The discourse in which

the subordinate classes live and think is controlled by the ideological state Apparatus; it is made

of the institutions developed by the ruling classes to maintain their economic dominance. In

addition there are some institutions, called Repressive States Apparatus, supervising the actions

through violence or coercion. In this play, it is shown how Capitalism hails and interpellates the

individuals as subjects; therefore, they cannot consider themselves as self-produced agents.

Key Words: Capitalism, ideology, Interpellation, ISA, Dominant class

1. Introduction

Mamet was born in 1947 in Chicago to Jewish parents, Lenore June (née Silver), a teacher,

and Bernard Morris Mamet, an attorney. One of his first jobs was as a busboy at Chicago's

The Second City. He was educated at the progressive Francis W. Parker School and at

Goddard Collage in Plainfield, Vermont. Mamet is an American playwright, essayist,

screenwriter, and film director. As a playwright, he has won a Pulitzer Prize and received

Tony nominations for Glengarry Glen Ross (1984) and Speed-the-Plow (1988). Mamet's

style of writing is in form of dialogue, marked by a cynical, street-smart edge, precisely

crafted for effect, which is so distinctive that it has come to be called Mamet speak or

Mametesque. Mamet has recognized his narrative style by expressing his debt to Harold

Pinter (1930-2008); his writing style is influenced by him that he dedicated Glengarry Glen

Ross to Pinter. He often uses italics and quotation marks to highlight particular words and

to draw attention to his characters' frequent manipulation and tricks in using language.

His characters frequently interrupt one another, their sentences remains unfinished, and

their dialogue overlaps. The language is vulgar; it is about sex in an offensive way. Bloom states

that “sex dominates all their conversations, just as work dominates those of the salesmen in

Glengarry Glen Ross” (16). Therefore, Mamet’s Glengarry Glen Ross “much more elliptical and

demand that the viewer/reader pay close attention to clues in the performance/text that will explain

the situation”; it represents the chaotic and dishonesty of characters (Brietzeke 122). As Benedict

Nightingale (1994) states the play is “the bard of modern-day barbarism” (332). In addition,

Christopher Bigsby asserts that Mamet’s writing has “contained anger in his comments on the

corruptions of power, the hypocrisies and cynicism of those who become the mere agents of

corporations who disavow their responsibility for their actions and thus offer a model of human

disregard” (5).

2. Methodology

Louis Pierre Althusser (1918 - 1990) was a Marxist philosopher who was born in Algeria and

studied at the prestigious École Normale Supérieure in Paris, where he eventually became

Professor of Philosophy. Althusser’s theory of ideology has been his most influential contribution

to literary and cultural studies. Lois Tyson generally writes, in Marxism’s sense, an ideology is “a

belief system, and all belief systems are products of cultural conditioning” (56). Luke Ferretter,

in his book Louis Althusser, he writes the term ideology represents what Althusser believes: “the

imaginary relationship to real conditions of existence” and it shows the role of “popular culture in

representing this imaginary relationship” (75). In Althusser’s essay, “Ideology and Ideological

State Apparatuses” (1971), develops the idea of the Marxist theory of ideology; he claims that

ideology “interpellates individual as subject” (28). To Althusser, ideology is much more related to

unconscious phenomenon than the consciousness. He believes:

Ideology is indeed a system of representations, but in

the majority of cases these representations have nothing

to do with ‘consciousness’: they are usually images and

occasionally concepts, but it is above all as structures

that they impose on the vast majority of men, not via

their consciousness. They are perceived-accepted-

suffered cultural perceived-accepted-suffered cultural

objects and they act functionally on men via a process

that escapes them. (qtd. in Ferretter 77)

It means that ideology is a kind of discourse that a person does not consciously own for oneself; it

is a discourse that should be judged rationally in order to be true. It is the kind of discourse making

a person accepts it consciously.

Further, ideology includes series of “discourses, images and ideas” that have been always all

around us since we are born; for example a person is surrounded by many messages and images

of advertisements and the way that he is supposed to think, look, and want (77). In fact, a person

is supposed to understand his world through the supposed ideology including, the images of a

sound family relationship, of the role of mother, of the perfect male and female bodies, of physical

appearance, of interests, of the ideal clothing style, of lifestyle, of entertainments, of eating habits,

of the way in which we are expected to think, act, and live.

Regarding this form of ideology, it might seem that it is the “common sense or popular

opinion”; however, they are “assumptions” (ibid 77). Althusser, further, describes ideology more

clearly as the “way in which people understand their world”; ideology remains “the set of

discourses” that through its concepts we realize “our experience” or our world (ibid). For example,

if a person is a businessman, he might think that his life is a kind of competition that it is necessary

to be shrewder, smarter and more hard-working than all the others. If a person is a Christian, he

might think of his life as a “moral progression towards eternity”; these ways of realizing our lives,

“these stories we tell ourselves in order to make sense of them” are the ideologies in which we live

(ibid 78). He writes:

Men live their actions, usually referred to as freedom

and consciousness by the classical tradition, in

ideology, by and through ideology; in short, the lived

relation between men and the world, including

History (in political action or inaction), passes

through ideology, or better, is ideology itself. (ibid

78)

It means that ideology is a large number of discourses, images and terms that we live our

“relationship to historical reality”; it does not present the reality or our position in it (ibid 78).

Ideology consists of the discourses; through its concepts one can understand his life, however, this

understanding is a misunderstanding. In ideology, people show their own real relation to the

“system of social relations in which they live in discourses”; this relationship remains in an

“imaginary or fictitious form”, in other words it represents “the imaginary relationship of

individuals to their real conditions of existence” (qtd. in Ferretter79).

In Althusser’s view, ideology misrepresents or misrecognizes historical reality or the

world because people want it to do so; therefore, ideology “expresses a wish or a desire” in which

there is “some reward or benefit to us in doing so” (79). Considering the nature of its reward, it is

clear that the benefit depends on the class position of each person living in the given ideology.

Althusser expresses that ideology is a misrepresentation of reality because people want and wish

to do so: “In ideology the real relation is invariably invested in the imaginary relation, a relation

that expresses a will (conservative, conformist, reformist or revolutionary), a hope or nostalgia,

rather than describing a reality” (79).

2.1. Priests and Despots’ Theory of Ideology

Considering Althusser’s definition of ideology, ideology first represents a relationship to reality

which is imaginary for someone living in it; it cannot be regarded as an important discourse that

the ruling classes misuse to exploit the working classes. The ruling classes tell lies that seem

appropriate to the mechanism of ideology as Althusser describes it as the “Priest and Despots”

theory of ideology and he further argues: “Priests and Despots … ‘forged’ the Beautiful Lies so

that, in the belief that they were obeying God, men would in fact obey the Priests and Despots,

who are usually in alliance in their imposture” (80). Priests and despots are in fact two different

agents in society; the religious institutions and the political system are the two agents telling

beautiful lies based on their own interests. In addition, he gives a new way of looking at this

complicated relations and ideology. Different elements of the society are determined by the

“economic base of that society, not only directly but also through the mediation of the various

levels of the superstructure” in which like a chain, all these superstructural levels are determined

by the economy and also affects “its own future development, all the other superstructural levels,

and the economic base itself” (42).

Then, Althusser says that although the ideology of the ruling classes is the ideology of the

society, the dominated classes also have their own ideologies expressing “their protest against this

domination”; therefore, Althusser points out that there is the existence of “different ideological

tendencies that express representations of the different social classes” (80). Although each social

class has its own ideology, the ideology of the dominated class is the subordinate one. This shows

the different layers of ideology in a society where the ruling class ideology is the dominant one;

the dominated class ideology is under the control of the bourgeois ideology. In fact the subordinate

class has the subordinate discourse while the bourgeois has the dominant discourse.

Based on Althusser’s view, there is a complex relationship that does not allow the

imaginary relationship to reality to be disappeared and it preserves the “reproduction of production

relations” (83).This means the reproduction and the relations of production make everything under

the control. In other words, all the relationships construct and classify the individuals to the

dominant and the dominated. This relation of production is an exploitation relation where the

ruling class exploits the dominated class through its own ideology. Althusser calls this

phenomenon the “Ideological State Apparatus”; the dominant class imposes its own ideology as

the rational ways of thinking and this makes the working class to be subordinated and dominated

by the dominant class (82). In Althusser’s sense, there are two kinds of apparatuses which work

together to impose the ideology of the upper class. Althusser writes:

The State Apparatus (SA) contains: the Government, the

Administration, the Army, the Police, the Courts, the

Prisons, etc., which constitute what I shall in future call the

Repressive State Apparatus. Repressive suggests that the

State Apparatus in question ‘functions by violence’ – at least

ultimately (since repression, e.g. administrative repression,

may take non-physical forms) (83).

In other words, these apparatuses include Ideological State Apparatus consisting of literary and

cultural production (ISAs) and Repressive State Apparatus referring to the police, the court, the

army and political institutions which are repressive and violent in their essence (RSAs). The ISAs

function and reassert the ideology of the powerful class through schools, families or religions.

Francois Matheron and Oliver Corpet elaborates “capitalist society obscured the class exploitation

on which it lived, hiding this exploitation under the complex effects of the play of ideological

elements that the state and its apparatuses strive to unify in a dominant ideology” (76). The RSAs

function through repression and violence; they use coercion, force and violence to impose their

power.

Althusser, further, writes about the concept of interpellation. To him, a person is not the

origin of his ideas or beliefs. It is the “ideology hails or interpellates individuals as subjects” (qtd.

in Ferretter 88). What an individual thinks of his own independence as a subject is not true because

it is the effect of ideology which works on him. It is the ideology which interpellates the

individuals. It is the shadow of reality if an individual thinks that it is who he thinks. An individual

is addressed in a way that the ideology expects him. Althusser, therefore, writes:

Ideology ‘acts’ or ‘functions’ in such a way that it ‘recruits’

subjects among the individuals (it recruits them all), or

‘transforms’ the individuals into subjects (it transforms them

all) by that very precise operation which I have called

interpellation or hailing, and which can be imagined along

the lines of the most commonplace everyday police (or

other) hailing: ‘Hey, you there!’ (1971: 174).

It means that when a police officer hails or shouts at an individual, the individual turns around to

answer the call and he becomes a subject. This is because the individual realizes that the hailing is

addressed at him in order to make him subjective to the ideology of democracy and law. The

individuals are subjects who are produced by social forces, rather than acting as powerful

independent individuals with the identities that they produce. Therefore the ideology leads all

individuals live in a false reality through its interpellation; individuals are the subjects of ideology.

2.3. Mamet’s Glengarry Glen Ross

According to Althusser, ideology is a part of a society’s superstructure and it is determined by

economic base; literary works are other “elements of a society’s superstructure” which are defined

in “form and content by the economic base of that society” (Ferretter 41). Glengarry Glen Ross

represents a group of four unethical Chicago real estate salesmen whose company has imposed a

ruthless regimen. They are supposed to unload undesirable real estate on unwilling prospective

buyers. The play is partly based on Mamet's experiences working in a Chicago real estate office

during the late 1960s. The most successful salesperson will receive a Cadillac, the second one a

set of steak knives; the loser will be fired out. It is the goal and model of a competitive capitalist

society. The key to success lies in finding the addresses of likely buyers. Since priority is given to

the successful individual, this is a world in which success leads to more success. Glengarry Glen

Ross is to show “the American Dream and its divisive myth of success,

[…] one can only succeed at the cost of, the failure of another another—even to the point of

promoting dishonesty: The effect on the little guy is that he turns to crime. And petty crime gets

punished; major crimes go unpunished” (qtd. in Hudgins 24). In this play, there is a dominant

ideology of capitalism which destroys humanity because of more success. Bloom elaborates “No

less than Glengarry Glen Ross it is a play about the whole of American business. Yet its reception

necessitated a revision. By garbing his charlatan in the dress of the socially respected” (60).

Bigsby adds Glengarry Glen Ross is “venality, self concern, the values of the market place,

all but destroy a sense of connection beyond the pragmatics of survival. But there is a yearning for

something else, a vague sense of what is being betrayed” (26). Moreover, Bigsby elaborates that

“it is not hard to understand why the salesmen are scrambling to boost their sales by any means

possible: theirs is the primal struggle for survival” (ibid 77). In this sense, the pressure encourages

behaving in an unfair or dishonest way; it causes to apply the immoral methods to the clients and

ultimately to the company. Unfortunately, desperate Shelley Levine, one of the salesmen, breaks

into the office and steals the address list of the wealthy clients. The crime is investigated by the

police. In fact, this shows the destructive essence of capitalism; the salesmen destroy themselves

by their dishonesty and viciousness. Mamet sows that the search for American Dream leads to

destroying salesmen. The disaster is that the salesmen sell not only lands but also their humanity.

Moreover, Brietzke explains that Mamet “reduces human contact in the world of Glengarry Glen

Ross to a series of sales transactions” (124). As it is shown in the play:

Roma: “Always Be Closing…

Levene: That’s what I’m saying. The old ways. The old

ways . . . convert the motherfucker . . . sell him . . . sell him

. . . make him sign the check.The . . . Bruce, Harriett . . . the

kitchen, blah: they got their money in government bonds. . .

. I say fuck it, we’re going to go the whole route. I plat it out

eight units. Eighty-two grand. I tell them. This is now. This

is that thing that you’ve been dreaming of, you’re going to

find that suitcase on the train, and the guy comes in the door,

the bag that’s full of money. This is it, Harriett. (GGR 45)

Looking through the dialogues between the salesmen, it is clear that how they destroy humanity

for their own benefits. In this society, ruling classes only pursue their own objective and ignore

honesty; they dominate the others by closing the respectful deal. Levene says: “A man’s his job

and you’re fucked at yours” (GGR 46). The language between characters demonstrates that there

are no positive interactions between them. Bigsby states that salesmen talk like “gangsters, indeed

are gangsters, are ready to resort to corruption, lying, and theft in order to conclude the sales that

will prevent them from getting fired” (77).

In addition, Brietzeke explains that "the job of the salesmen is to sell, and that’s what they

do and that reveals who they are”; Brietzeke expresses that Mamet “reduces the world of the play

to a series of sales transactions in which the man who succeeds […] is the one who can successfully

close the deal and exert his will upon a victim. In the play, one doesn’t learn anything about the

men other than their ability to do their job: to sell” (125). Mamet shows the corruption and

dehumanization more when Aaronow complains about the salesmen swindling customers:

Aaronow: And it’s not right to the customers.

Moss: I know it’s not. I’ll tell you, you got, you know, you

got . . . what did I learn as a kid on Western? Don’t sell a guy

one car. Sell him five cars over fifteen years. (GGR 21)

The interaction between people is based on money. The salesman who is able to close a deal and

find a customer is the winner. There is no place or rights for customers in the society of capitalism;

it is only the salesmen who do their own business to win. The salesmen try to play tricks to buy

worthless land and sell them to their clients. They corrupt humanization for their own benefits; the

dialogue between salesmen displays how they convince themselves to comit crime to achieve their

dream:

Aaronow: What?

Moss: The whole fuckin’ thing . . . The pressure’s just

too great. You’re ab . . . you’re absolu . . . they’re too

important. All of them. You go in the door. I . . . “I got

to close this fucker, or I don’t eat lunch,” “or I

don’t win the Cadillac . . . .” We fuckin’ work too hard.

You work too hard. We all, I remember when we were

at Platt . . . huh? Glen Ross Farms . . . didn’t we sell a

bunch of that . . . ? (GGR 20)

Thus playing tricks is regarded a legitimate process of business in this play; corruption and

dehumanization exist in this society. There is the idea of “strive and succeed, your extremity is my

opportunity […] it’s very divisive […]. Economic life in America is a lottery. Everyone’s got an

equal chance but only one guy is going to get to the top. ‘The more I have the less you have.’ So

one can only succeed at the cost of the failure of another” (Bigsby 94). Therefore, Capitalism is

important to influence the function of society; Mamet presents the idea of American dream in this

play.

The play takes place in two acts; the first is divided into three scenes, each of which

happens in a Chinese restaurant. Roma finds his customer in the restaurant where he is supposed

to relax. However, he manages his contracts in the Chinese restaurant that it displays man’s private

life is influenced by business or capitalism. The second is in the real estate office where the robbery

happens; this also represents the negative effect of capitalism. The play concerns about power; it

represents all human relationships will be either dominant or the subservient at any given moment.

Ferretter adds, according to Althusser, there is a more complex undercurrent imaginary

relationship to real conditions of existence and preserves the “reproduction of production

relations” (83). It means that all those relationships that construct the class society and divide the

individuals into either the exploiter or the exploited. For example, the fourth salesman, Ricky

Roma, has a little more success than his co-workers. When he masterfully plays a trick on James

Lingk, persuading him that if he doesn't do something adventurous with his life, he will regret it

on his deathbed:

Roma: . . . all train compartments smell vaguely of shit. It

gets so you don’t mind it. That’s the worst thing

that I can confess. You know how long it took me to get

there? A long time. When you die you’re going to

regret the things you don’t do. You think you’re queer . . . ?

I’m going to tell you something: we’re all

queer. You think that you’re a thief? So what? You get

befuddled by a middle-class morality . . . ? Get

shut of it. Shut it out. You cheated on your wife . . . ? You

did it, live with it. (GGR 31)

It, therefore, shows the dominant and dominated classes in capital society. Mamet presents that

the ultimate aim of salesmen is money; this system of capitalism causes corruption, dishonesty and

destruction. While the real estate office attempts to impose its ideology on the unwilling

prospective buyers, this institution is considered to function as Ideological State Apparatuses

(ISAs) to convince buyers through their ideology. Ruling classes have their own ideology and

exercise their own beliefs; in addition, the exploited classes have formed their ideology based on

the interest of ruling class. This represents that society contains the ideology of dominant class;

the ideology of subordinate class makes the subordinate discourse. Therefore, the ruling class

exercises a special influence and control over ideas in society. Thus Althusser writes:

The (Repressive) State Apparatus functions massively and

predominantly by repression (including physical repression),

while functioning secondarily by ideology. (There is no such

thing as a purely repressive apparatus.[…] it is essential to say

that for their part, the Ideological State Apparatuses function

massively and predominantly by ideology, but they also

function secondarily by repression, even if only ultimately, but

only ultimately, this is very attenuated and concealed, even

symbolic. There is no such thing as a purely ideological

apparatus. (1971: 138)

In this play, individuals are presented principally as produced by social forces, rather than acting

as powerful independent people with their self-produced identities. People should act based on

ideological requirements of society; if they do not behave in this way, they will be punished

severely and such punishments are socially acceptable because people consider them as the divine

right of government to punish them.

Therefore, whenever the subjects want to have self-produced identities, they are

interpellated through the process of hailing them in social interactions. While Roma, one of the

real state office members, returns to the Chinese restaurant; he also hails Aaronow to stay in the

restaurant. Roma’s circular back to the restaurant can be considered as returning to the system of

capitalism or material success:

Aaronow (Settling into a desk chair): Oh, God, I hate this job.

Roma (Simultaneous with “job,” exiting the office): I’ll be at the

restaurant. (GGR 64)

Consequently, individuals are as subjects produced and interpellated by social forces, rather than

acting as powerful independent individuals with their own self-produced identities. In fact Mamet’

characters suffer from their current situations; their interactions are based on their jobs. Bigsby

states: “crime and its solution change nothing. This sleazy operation will continue as before.

Salesmen will have their triumphs and their failures; ordinary people will be duped and fleeced”

(93). In fact, this play tells us the story of American Dream; it represents how for being successful

salesmen manipulate their co- workers or clients.

To quote Douglas Bruster (2004): “Mamet’s characters are bent more on sheer survival.

Significantly, much of the playwright’s ideology seems to assume the principle of natural

selection” (50-1). There is no friendship between them; capitalism corrupts honesty between

characters. There is no honesty and true friendship; as Bigsby expresses “little more than a

momentary coincidence of interests; contact is momentary, alliance a fact of shared situation;

Relationship, it seems, is a trap, communication a snare and friendship a means of facilitating

betrayal” (79-80).

In another scene Levene comes into the office happily because he could finally sell a large

part of land to a couple called Nyborg. The salesmen do everything immoral to sell more lands

and be winners in their competition; this dishonest behavior shows the destructive nature of

capitalism that ignores humanity. Williamson, based on his earlier conversation with Levene,

decides that because Levene was desperate to make a sale, he must be the one who broke into the

office and stole the leads. Levene ultimately admits that he and Moss are the thieves:

Williamson: You robbed the office.

Levene (Laughs): Sure! I robbed the office. Sure.

Williamson: If you tell me where the leads are, I

won’t turn you in. If you don’t, I am going to tell

the cop you stole them, Mitch and Murray will see

that you go to jail. Believe me they will. Now,

what did you do with the leads? I’m walking in

that door—you have five seconds to tell me: or

you are going to jail. (GGR 60)

The Repressive State Apparatus (RSA) which includes the police, the army and the courts are

shown clearly in Glengarry Glen Ross; Williamson reports Levene to police. He forces Levene to

admit his robbery. Levene ends up broken and goes to prison.

In the second act, it is clear that someone has broken into the office and stolen everything,

including the Glengarry leads. Williamson, therefore, calls a police detective interrogating every

on. As it is presented in the play, police officers are examples of RSAs. An interesting example in

the play is:

Williamson: If you tell me where the leads are, I

won’t turn you in. If you don’t, I am going to tell

the cop you stole them, Mitch and Murray will

see that you go to jail. Believe me they will. Now,

what did you do with the leads? I’m walking in

that door—you have five seconds to tell me: or

you are going to jail. (GGR 60)

The detectives, Baylen and Attorney Gen, represent the ubiquitous present of the RSA. Their task

is to use force and violence in order to impose their ideology. In fact, this play “offers a portrait of

a battle for survival, a Darwinian struggle in which the salesmen offer a dream of possibility. In a

play about real estate there is, in fact, very little real in Glengarry Glen Ross” (Bigsby 78). The

salesmen sell their souls for their materialistic goals.

3.Conclusion

Glengarry Glen Ross represents the struggle for life in the capitalist society. It is a battle for

survival. The characters, therefore, are far from humanity and compassion and are full of fear,

greed and immorality. The ruling classes attempt to exploit the dominated classes through their

own ideology in order to impose their power on the individuals. In this way the dominated class is

considered as subject controlled by the power of the ISAs and RSAs respectively. In capitalism,

exploitation originates from the way in which the means of production are owned privately and

labour is traded like any other commodity; such arrangements are accepted without the need for

force reflecting the fact that the ruling class imposes a special influence over ideas in society. It

controls and exercises the ideology accepted by the members of society in general.

Ideology is the name of all the discourse in society that does not, like science, represent the

reality of that society. It is the way in which men and women live their relationship to reality; it

represents the imaginary relationship of individuals to their real conditions of existence. An ISA,

is an institution that functions primarily by ideology, and primarily by the ruling ideology in a

given society. This social function is secured by the Repressive State Apparatus, which functions

primarily by force. The university, the discipline of literary studies, the publishing industry and

the various cultural industries, such as the cinema and the media, are all ISA. Although there are

oppositional ideologies, they function primarily to perpetuate the ruling ideologies of capitalist

society, most fundamental among which is the humanist ideology of the subject. In fact, the origin

of beliefs and ideas are not individuals; it is the ideological state apparatuses which interpellates

individuals.

Generally, individuals are independent to define and determine their actions, feelings and

thoughts; however, society is a complex system of relations that related together. Indeed, in

Glengarry Glen Ross, characters do not have human warmth and affection; they are full of greed,

immorality and ruthlessness. They only think about their own benefits and misuse others. They are

the agents of capitalism; the play is about American capitalism; it is based on destructive

competition. Individuals do not have total control over their own decisions and existence; it is the

ideology of society which interpellates the individuals. Individuals are the subjects of dominant

ideology. Glengarry Glen Ross displays corruption and dehumanizing experience for salesmen; it

is the nature of capitalism which makes the salesmen involved in the relations of production. This

play shows the system of capitalism is destructive and dishonest; it represents how salesmen

struggle to win the competition by deceiving each other.

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